Minnesota Imam Refuses to Denounce the Islamic State (ISIS)

Muslim cleric Ben Ameur has a message for those seeking his view on the ISIS issue: “We don’t need to accuse people of something we don’t know about. We don’t have to jump into judgment.” Got that? “Something we don’t know about” — which is very much in keeping with their strategy. And isn’t that the point of all their attacks on voices of truth who speak candidly about Islam and jihad, to silence us and make sure the American people continue to know nothing about the jihadic doctrine that compels these bloody wars in the cause of Islam?

Minnesota imam looks at ‘caliphate’ through Islamic lens,” by Ibrahim Hirsi, MinnPost, November 28, 2014 (thanks to Creeping):Any time a militant organization rises with violent acts in the name of Islam, some Muslim leaders grow vocal in denouncing radicalization as they distance their faith from terrorism. Often times, some of these religious leaders seem to condemn certain actions or groups because the society expects them to do so — or because they’re concerned that critics might put them in the spotlight for their silence.

But Sheikh Jamel Ben Ameur, an Islamic scholar and imam of Masjid Al-Tawba Islamic Cultural Community Center in Eden Prairie, has refused to denounce the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria for one reason, he says: because the news reports about the Islamic State are “confusing” and “complicated.”

Ben Ameur has called on his Muslim counterparts to be careful about their comments regarding the group amid developing revelations that several Twin Cities Muslims have been recruited to join the Islamic State, which is also often referred to as ISIS or ISIL. In the most recent instance, two Minnesota men — Abdullahi Yusuf, 18, and Abdi Nur, 20 — were charged this week with conspiring to support the terrorist organization.

When he spoke to a crowd of about 100 Muslims at Masjid Al-Tawba earlier this fall, Ben Ameur said many people in the Muslim community ask Islamic scholars to condemn the group. And Ben Ameur has a message for those seeking his view on the ISIS issue: “We don’t need to accuse people of something we don’t know about. We don’t have to jump into judgment.”

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